Beneath the Old Gods
by Oparu
Summary: before the show about twelve years, fluffy, happy sex.  Catelyn meets him in the godswood, drunk with spring.


The godswood stood the winter, as it has since Winterfell was built around it. He keeps retreating to it, breathing in the spring while the castle recovers from the winter. It was long and he fears the next will be longer still. His people are full of life and hope but Ned's thoughts are full of the darkness that has just left them.

They had enough food, but it was tight at the end. Few of the small folk died, and he can't expect them all to live, but he can't help feeling Brandon might have done better or that his father might have laid away more provisions. He shuts his eyes, leaning against the heart tree. The sun warms his face and there's a hint of summer in the golden light. It's nearly enough to still his concerns like the pond beside him, but he is the Lord of Winterfell. The needs of his people must come first, in winter as in spring. Spring may truly be here, but winter is coming.

"My lord looks to be attempting to become part of the heart tree."

"Would that I could on a day like this." He lifts a hand to her, eyes still closed. If she's not summoning him to be lord, Catelyn may sit with him, taking in the sun. While it makes him still and lazy like an old barn cat, the sun fills her with life, as if she's been waiting for the snow to melt to burst forth.

Ned hears no babbling children with her. Sansa must be asleep and Robb training with his wooden sword. They're both growing like the new grass in the yard, faster than he can keep them in his mind. They're northern children, who must grow strong before the next winter, but they're both made all the sweeter with the blood of his southern wife.

She takes his hand and kisses it, her lips warmer than spring sunshine. She follows his arm up, nuzzling her way through his shift until she's kissing his neck and stealing his breath. Ned opens his eyes but she's haloed with sun and her hair is red as the sands of Dorne.

Catelyn crawls into his lap, her legs and skirts on both sides of his. Her hands slip behind his neck and her nose is a hair from his. "Can you smell the spring, my lord?"

There's a way she purrs his title that turns it from burden to blessing. He's hers and Winterfell's both, and she has the more pressing claim. Catelyn kisses his chin, then his cheek as if she's on her way to his mouth on a drunkard's road. She could be drunk with spring, the way it glows in her eyes.

Holding her waist, he toys with the laces of her dress, then grabs her shoulders, kissing her hard and full. She pushes back, leaning him into the tree with the press of her breasts. Her gown is tight on her breasts, still full for Sansa, who alternates between her mother's milk and bites of porridge. He loves the way her breasts are round in his palms and how some of her gowns need to be laced looser than others. This one in particular, a bright riverlands blue, has that loosely bound neckline he loves to untie.

Pulling back, she eyes him, curious. "What must your gods think of us? Frolicking like youths in a song of spring." She doesn't add that this behaviour would be entirely out of place in her sept, but he likes that her smile hasn't left her lips.

"The old gods pass no judgement. The children of the forest were wedded and bedded in godswoods back when this tree was young." He's half joking when he leans close to her ear. "Perhaps they miss the show."

Catelyn laughs, patting his chest and shaking her head. She runs the hand on his chest down, reaching for the ties of his belt. He watches her nimble fingers unhook the dark metal and let it drop to the moss. "I think there are traditions that ought to be renewed. Your old gods might like me better if I bring this one back."

Ned barely hears her and comprehends only when she starts pulling loose the laces of his leather trousers.

"The old gods need no gifts." He runs his hands up her sides, passing her breasts. Catelyn undoes the top of her gown for him, pressing the ties into his hands.

"Then the gift is to ourselves and the old gods can watch." Her eyes glow wicked at the idea and it's her, wild with spring that melts his concerns. Winter is a long way off when she's on his lap.

Catelyn wriggles out of her small clothes, whispering to guide his hands while she tugs his shift free from his trousers and settles her feet in the earth. Her feet are bare and there's something about her toes in this sacred earth, her hair down on half-bared shoulders and the unbelievable warmth of her that touches the divine.

She teases him hard, running impatient fingers up and down while he skims the soft skin of her thigh. He loves the downy hairs there and the way they melt into the sweat of her when they've been making love beneath the furs in their bed. He kisses her neck, letting her guide their joining. He wants her breasts and the flick of her tongue against his. She leans back, removing the silver Tully pin from her shift and tucks it into his.

"Today, my lord, I name you Lord Tully of Winterfell and would wed you here, in the godswood."

"I'd wed you anywhere, Cat, from here to the Smoking Sea." Calling her Cat gets the extra gleam in her eye that he adores as much as her laugh.

"Even if it made you a trout instead of a wolf?" She slides up enough to brush the heat of her thigh against him. He'd let her bake him as a trout if she asked and she knows it.

Toying with her hair, he nods. "If I were yours, I'd wear the scales proudly."

"No 'if', my lord." She kisses down the side of his neck, loosening his shirt enough to kiss his shoulder. "You're as much mine as I'm yours. We've given enough to each other to be well mixed."

He remembers his mother reminding him that marriage was compromises that kept the peace, that good husbands listened and spoke in turns. Ned put being a husband behind fighting wars and struggling through snow but Catelyn waited for him. She came North out of duty, she protected his honour while he stained hers and she gave him a family. Their children are the Starks in Winterfell, the promise of a future where there will be many more.

Kissing her again has a sweetness he holds while she shifts her weight ever closer.

"I'll have you now, Eddard Tully of Winterfell, if you're willing."

Now he laughs, sitting up as the ache to be within her sings like the winter wind through his body. "You've had me a long time already, my lady wife."

"Is that yes?"

"Yes." He nuzzles her neck and squeezes her breast to make his point.

Catelyn guides him into the wet warmth of her and drops to her knees astride him. He can barely see her astride her horse without thinking her thighs around him and her hair falling down onto his chest. Her soft sigh and the tightening of her fingers on his shoulders chase the last thoughts of winter from his mind. This moment is only of spring and the promise of green growing things.

He kisses her neck, catching the first hint of sweat on her skin. He's her balance and the tree is his. His hands dance over her, one creeping beneath her skirts to tease her as she rocks her hips into his. She nods, then whimpers her approval as he strokes his thumb across her until the moan in her throat is a gasp into his neck.

He whispers her name after heat pounds through him, not Catelyn, but Cat. His Cat, who lies in his arms against the heart tree, catching her breath with her hair as wild as the tangle of her gown. She's still across him and his seed is damp on them both.

"We need a spring child, my love, and a summer one to follow her." Catelyn toys with her pin, still in his shirt. He's half a mind to keep it.

Sansa is their winter baby, a little red wolf in the grey world. She needs a sister. He brushes back her hair from her face, but there's so much of it that he's still tucking when she kisses him again.

Ned leans back again, smiling and content. "We can fill the castle with children."

"I'd like that." There's such sincerity in her voice that he hugs her tight, holding her against his heart.

"Our own horde of summer children."

Cat laughs, lifting her head. "Are you setting us a challenge, my love?"

"Nothing we can't handle." They're young and healthy and summer is just over the trees. Winter will come, but not for a long while yet. "The gods will see to that, even your new ones."

"The old ones have certainly favoured me today." She starts to return her shift to place and he covers her hands with his. He can put on her gowns as well as take them off and he wants to dress her this time.

"Not too tight," she says. "Sansa will be hungry."

"Luwin or the Septa will bring her if she needs you."

Catelyn nods, shifting so that he can reach all the laces they've let loose. He's easing a stubborn one back when she catches his chin, lifting his eyes back to hers. She stares, drinking him in before kissing him and returning him to his task. "Spring puts light in your eyes."

"I think that was you more than the weather, Cat."

She smiles all the brighter. "I do like to chase storm clouds away from that lordly face of yours."

"What face do I have now?"

"The one I like best." She holds his face in her hands. "My love."


End file.
